Shooting diary 1

The first day of filming our media project was spent following my shot script recording all the scenes that take place inside the house. Overall we were well organised and knew the footage that we required and went about in an orderly manner, but uncounted and overcame the problem of the cameras reflection seen in the mirror by using the ninety degree rule.

Filming dialogue

In our short film we wanted to include a section of speech during the mugging scene so we found the 18^th verse from chapter 9 of the Bhagavad Gita, which is -

‘I am the goal, the sustainer, the master, the witness, the abode, the refuge, and the most dear friend. I am the creation and the annihilation, the basis of everything, and the resting place.’

This passage relates to the theme of fate as is based around Krsna the supreme ruler who is believed to own everything, everything of which exists on his energy. Fate is commonly deciphered as the development of events outside a person's control, and is regarded to be determined by a supernatural power. The supernatural power being Krsna, who is the extinguishable cause of everything having control over everyone's future. In relative terms meaning that you cannot escape your fate. 

filming casting

Our A2 media studies short film project required three actors with the additional person to wear the clown costume and an extra to appear once bumping into the main character. The main male figure was the only casting that we did to some extent as members of our group appeared as the muggers and me as the clown. The male character had to be of an age around mid-twenties  and readily available for filming so we thought about are families and friends and decided to ask Gareth if he would available to and willing to appear in our short film. With his agreement and the decisions made on both locations and costumes we were ready to film with concordance to our individual shot scripts.

filming costumes

The narrative of a fate telling machine and the character inside coming to life meant finding an appropriate costume that would suit being present in a machine and that would appear to scare the targeted audience. Looking at the many horror films came to notice a common character of a psycho clown as in IT and Chucky.  This resulted in us purchasing a clown costume that was half red and black and that had a creepily smiling mask.

Our main male character had to wear a costume that would mediate the reason for him to walk past the same place every day of being the end of his work day, so we had him wear a suit. Due to our low budget and the fact the narrative runs over a series of days instead of having him change suit we had him wear different ties to symbolise a different day.

The two female mugger’s costumes to go against the typical perception of male hooligans dressed in all black to hide their identity consisted of brightly coloured hoodies. The low budget meant that we used hoodies that we already possessed.

filming locations

Whilst planning our film we had discussions on the types of setting which our short film should be set. In conclusion we decided with a narrative point of view to have the main setting outside an amusement’s to provide a realist background of where the fate telling machine would be believed to be found so that the story can unfold and the natural perception of fate unravelling is anchored . The idea that an amusements is a place of enjoyment and relative tranquillity enforces the films persona of being unnatural causing confusion as is not a common setting for a horror stalking to take place. The other setting that our film required was a house providing the narrative a place for the main character to return to as a place of safety in his mind but a place of entrapment for the narrative.

Once we came to the decision we had to realize these settings so began scouting for possible locations. The house setting we made use of one of ours as limited by a low budget and time, but we added props to create a sense of realism that our main character could reside there. The nearest amusement as limited by transportation was Felixstowe so we got into contact with the amusements manager to ask permission for using there establishment as our films setting.